General Fundraising

Net gains

More than £50 billion is spent on online purchases in the UK every year, from clothes to holidays to the household groceries. This offers schools an effective way of raising funds, writes Andrew Maiden

Most of the parents with children at your school have a home internet connection. According to recent estimates, this figure is around 60 per cent, with the majority of them making regular online purchases. Since there are now specialist affinity shopping portals that offer commission to schools on purchases made by parents and other school supporters, the internet can provide a compelling way of boosting the school coffers.

An early exponent of this new type of site is found at www.buy.at, which was launched in 2002. It has more than 150 retail outlets and other merchants who agree either up to 15 per cent commission to the school, or a fixed fee, usually on take-up of a credit card or by switching gas or electricity suppliers. The fee is up to £85. The site hosts a wide range of brand-name companies, including Next, Asda, M&S, Egg, ASDA, BT Broadband, Sky, Carphone Warehouse, Early Learning Centre, La Senza, Waterstones, Thorntons, Ticketmaster UK and more. So far, more than 3,000 schools in the UK have registered with the site.

The buy.at fundraising initiative offers a free webshop for schools and charities. All purchases made through the retailers in the webshop generate commission, which is then passed on to the school in a cheque at the end of each month (once £20 or more is raised. If not, the sum is carried over until the commission earned exceeds this minimum).

Fair trading?
The webshops offer the same prices as when shopping directly with them, with some stores having exclusive webshop offers and other deals such as free delivery. The web address used for each school’s webshop (url) is, for example, www.buy.at/yourschoolname. This makes it easier to remember and bookmark.

What next?
A school representative needs to register the school's name, address and bank account name (usually a school fund or PTA account) for receiving commission cheques, and a contact name.

Once the account has been set up, the webshop is live and is customised with your school's name and logo. There are posters and leaflets available for download in your webshop to help promote awareness of the site. The school can add its logo, photos and text in the news section of the site. The site is searchable; the product search can be used as a price comparison tool and there is a facility to send messages to supporters or forward details of the latest offers to your members.

“Without needing any technical knowledge, schools can raise substantial funds without asking their supporters to make a donation,” says Michelle Perry, cause development manager for buy.at.
Schools can expect to earn around more than £1,000 per year; the average donation per purchase is currently £2.75.

Tracking the US
Easyfundraising is a free fundraising webshop currently used by more than 3,000 schools and raise money whenever parents shop online. www.easyfundraising.org.uk lists more than 600 well known retailers. When parents make an online purchase, a free cash donation is generated for your school.

Benefits:
• free to register and use for both school and parents;
• parents raise funds by purchasing online as they would normally do, so no need to ask them to donate;
• more than 600 retailers, including many popular names such as Argos, Next, Amazon, Debenhams, John Lewis, Direct Line, Churchill and more;
• extensive toys and children section featuring Early Learning Centre, Toys R Us, The Toy Shop and more;
• purchases do not cost more, but each purchase generates a donation for your school.
• each family can raise £300 per year on average for your school with the site;
• regular money-saving special offers and free-to-enter competitions to encourage parents to use the site;
• includes free product comparison service so parents can make sure they are getting the best deal for their money;
• includes free school search engine featuring your name and logo: each parent can raise £20 pa for your school by making 10 searches per day; and
• referral programme, where you can raise additional funds by letting other schools know about the site.

New options
VAC Media claims to be the largest provider of affinity websites in the UK. It offers a custom-made, fully maintained site branded to your school. There are no charges or maintenance fees. It offers a cashback service for users, with a shared commission for your school and the provider. Details are on www.cashbackpartners.com

Your parent customers can shop at more than 1,400 participating retailers including M&S, Boots, WH Smith, Comet, Currys, Expedia, Avon, Esure, Carphone Warehouse, BT and others. The site has merchants in 37 categories including books, DVDs, mobile phones, broadband, electrical, insurance, computers, travel and gifts.

Members can expect to earn hundreds of pounds as cashback. Sample customer earnings: £45 for home insurance from Natwest, £37.50 for car insurance from Pru, £35 for broadband from Sky, up to £25 for mobile phones from Carphone Warehouse, 2.5 per cent at MFI, 4 per cent from WH Smith, up to 3 per cent on Expedia, and up to 1.5 per cent on Tesco.

With revenue share, your customer gets 50 per cent of the commission provided by retailers. Of the remaining 50 per cent, you earn 60 per cent. If, for example, an online gadget store pays 10 per cent commission and your customers buy £1,000 worth of gadgets using your loyalty portal, the merchant gives the website a commission of £100. VAC Media pays your customers £50 as cashback, pays you £30 and takes £20 to provide the service.

Your school gets paid automatically via BACS, direct to your bank account on a monthly basis. Minimum payment threshold is £100, with any unpaid money carried over to the following month.

Free fundraising site
Alternatively, if you do not want to have a separate fundraising portal, you could sign up to the charity fundraising portal www.froggybank.co.uk, where you can build a free fundraising page for your school and promote it to parents. Like the above example, parents can earn cashback on their shopping and choose to donate to your school.

Kids too
KidStart (www.kidstart.co.uk/?t=schent), an online shopping club that gives back up to 20% of what is spent and places it into a savings account for children, is now allowing its members (ie your parents) to choose to save for a school as well.

A school class with 25 pupils could raise £1,500 in a year if the family of each pupil shops through KidStart; also saving up to £60 per family on their usual fashion, school clothing and footwear purchases.

KidStart offers shoppers more than 250 online retailers, some high street shops and some phone line retailers ranging from food and drink to sports and leisure. When members buy a product or service, a percentage of every purchase is automatically placed into a savings account. Typically this is a child trust fund, but now shoppers have the chance to select a school.

The KidStart site has more than 40,000 UK primary, secondary, academies and special needs schools so that their members have the chance to select any school they would like to make their beneficiary. 
You could join as a school and make your school purchases online and receive money back on every purchase. You can also tell parents to choose your school as a beneficiary when they shop.

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